Years ago, I found myself sitting in law school in Moot Court wearing an oversized itchy blue suit. It was a horrible experience. In a desperate attempt to avoid anything like that in the future I enrolled in a tax course. I loved it. I signed up for another. Before I knew it, in addition to my JD, I had a LL.M Taxation. I needed only to don my cape…. taxgirl® was born. Today, I live and work in Philadelphia, PA, one of the best cities in the world (I can't even complain about the sports teams these days). I landed in the City of Brotherly Love by way of Temple University School of Law. While at law school, I interned at the estates attorney division of the IRS. At IRS, I participated in the review and audit of federal estate tax returns. I even took the lead on a successful audit. At audit, opposing counsel read my report, looked at his file and said, “Gentlemen, she’s exactly right.” I nearly fainted. It was a short jump from there to practicing, teaching, writing and breathing tax.

Educational assistance programs are the equivalent of free money offered by employers and are considered fringe benefits to employees. Fringe benefits are usually taxable to employees and must be included in pay – unless they’re specifically excluded by law. Fortunately for taxpayers, educational assistance benefits are excluded so long as they meet certain qualifications.

To qualify as a tax favored educational assistance program, the plan must be in writing and all eligible employees must have reasonable notice of the plan. Like most benefits plans, an educational assistance plan cannot be discriminatory: the criteria in the plan must not favor highly compensated employees. Additionally, the plan cannot provide more than 5% of its benefits during the year for shareholders or owners or for an employee who received more than $115,000 in pay for the preceding year (some exceptions apply).

Under the plan, tax-free educational assistance benefits may include payments for tuition, fees and similar expenses, books, supplies, and equipment. However, benefits may not include meals, lodging, or transportation; tools or supplies (other than textbooks) that you can keep after you’re done with your course; and lessons focusing on sports, games, or hobbies unless they have a reasonable relationship to the business of your employer or are required as part of a degree program. That said, education generally includes any form of instruction or training that improves or develops your capabilities: you don’t have to be pursuing a degree to claim the benefits.

The amount of potential benefit is pretty amazing: assuming that you qualify, the program can offer up to $5,250 of tax free educational assistance benefits. This isn’t a deduction. It’s an exclusion: that means that your employer doesn’t even report it on your federal form W-2 (wages, tips and other compensation typically shows up in box 1). That’s $5,250 worth of educational benefits – free – and not taxable.

If your employer pays you more than $5,250 in benefits (lucky you), your employer must include the extra as wages on your federal form W-2, and you must report those amounts on your tax return, unless the benefits are considered working condition benefits. A working condition fringe benefit is a benefit which, had you paid for it, you could deduct as an employee business expense (think continuing education credits, for example). If that’s the case, that amount is also excludable.

The benefit is very specific: you have to take it as educational assistance. You can’t ask for cash or cash equivalent, or try to put some other benefit in its place.

And no double dipping: You can’t use expenses paid for by your employer for educational assistance to claim the tuition and fees deduction, or any other education credit, including the American Opportunity Credit and the Lifetime Learning Credit.

Over $5,000 of tax-exempt money for education? That’s pretty incredible. You can make it even more incredible by winning our next giveaway and getting decked out for class. To ensure students stand out this school year, Office Depot is offering a laptop backpack from its exclusive NCredible collection by Nick Cannon. The backpack features a dedicated interior pocket to hold an iPad, eReader or tablet and is filled with this year’s best core fashion supplies and essentials, including animal print pencil pouches and glitter notebooks, allowing all students to create a personalized look that fits with their own style. For all back-to-school needs, visit www.officedepot.com or your local Office DepotOffice Depot store.

Office Depot’s BTS Week Prize Pack has a total estimated value of $115 and includes:

(1) NCredible Backpack filled with:

o (1) NCredible Flash Drive Bracelet, 16 GB

o (1) NCredible iPhone 5 Case

o (1) Animal Print 3-Piece Pencil Pouch

o (3) Fashion Folders, assorted patterns

o (3) Fashion Notebooks, assorted patterns

To enter to win, just post a comment telling me what you would study – any course – if you could go back to school. I’ll go first to get you started: I’d love to taking a cooking course.

Entries must be posted in the comments section for this blog post in the space below by 5:00 p.m. EST on September 12, 2013. It’s just that easy. I’ll choose the winner randomly (using a number generator) out of all of the qualifying entries.

Be sure and read the fine print for more rules because, as you know, I’m a lawyer and I like rules:

Don’t panic if your comment doesn’t show immediately. If it goes to moderation because, for example, you’re new here, the time stamp on your comment is what counts. If you have difficulty registering, please send an email to blogadmin@forbes.com and copy me (tech@taxgirl.com) so that I can help if I need to/can.

I love my Twitter followers and my FacebookFacebook fans but for this particular giveaway, tweets and Facebook comments will not be counted. Ditto for emails. You must leave your comment on the blog at this post.

You can enter as many times as you like but you must leave a different answer each time you comment.

Offensive comments or comments that otherwise violate the comment policy will be deleted and will not be considered valid for purposes of the contest. Similarly, pingbacks and other links will be disregarded for purposes of the contest.

You must include your full name and your email address with your entry, just enter it when you register to comment. I won’t publish your email address but I do need contact information for the winning entry.

Due to shipping considerations, only United States addresses, please. Sorry, Canada, eh?

I respect your privacy and I will not send you anything unrelated to your entry in this contest. By entering the contest, you agree that I may post any part or all of your submission including your name as a part of the contest announcements or promotions, with the exception of your email address.

Like Judge Judy, my determination is final.

Prizes are provided directly by our sponsors. Sponsors do not pay for placement and do not receive any compensation for contributions – neither do I! I have no affiliation, paid or otherwise, with any of our sponsors.

Finally, the giveaway is about me, me, me. It’s not affiliated with or endorsed by Forbes. So leave them out of it, okay?

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if not an IT hardware class for dummies who carried 1000+ sets of punch-cards to computers requiring separate rooms due to their largeness, then a ‘good’ Spanish learning class to makeup for all the French classes in high school & college that don’t help me much now.. lol, and yes there is enough difference to cause some very interesting (and embarrassing) situations in other countries where my daughter was competing gymnastics in her pre-college years..